Posted
by
CmdrTacoon Monday July 29, 2002 @02:32PM
from the something-to-consider dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like Console Classix is trying introduce a new old concept to the world of P2P file sharing, at least as it applies to NES and SNES ROM images. You download their client program, and then you can "borrow" one ROM image at a time from their site, play it, and then release it for someone else to use. There are a finite number of ROM images on the site, each one ostensibly dumped from a legitimate and unique cartridge. I wonder if this will allow an end-run around some of the questionable legality of file-sharing... and I wonder if this could work for MP3s, movies, and other forms of media?" I think its pretty reasonable, but I doubt that the industries will agree.

It looks like NOA hasn't contacted them in over a year regarding the alleged violation. Perhaps that means NOA realized they don't have much of a case against ConsoleClassix.com [consoleclassix.com]. Either that or they've been brewing a legal case for the last 13 months, which doesn't sound all that likely to me.

Who knows, maybe someone has finally figured out a way to sling stones at the giants and defeat them.

- Don't bypass the encryption - digitize a tape or the output of a DVD player rather than using DECSS.

- Stream it to customers using a client that doesn't make a non-ephemeral local copy and dumps cache if the connection is lost (i.e. Realplay, Microsoft's media player with appropriate flags set, or a client of your own.)

- Don't have more streams going than you have purchased copies of the original program. (Might also be good to digitize each copy separately.)

Of course you'd want to rent for a several-day period (like a video rental store) rather than releasing the copy for re-rental as soon as the customer is done with it. Otherwise you'll have a much faster turnaround than a video store and will thus rent more showings per copy. Good for you but bad for the studio, so they're more likely to go after you in court.

Even with the same rental times you'll probably be slightly more efficient than a video chain, since you'll have ONE virtual store with a single pool of virtual tapes to serve all the customers, rather than having to divide the copies among multiple physical stores and guess the local markets right. But that's small potatoes. Your big profit improvement over a classic rental chain will come from not having to maintain the physical stores.

Of course, "fair use" states that you can lend, borrow, and sell used merchandise (CDs, PS2 games, etc) but when it's on such a large scale, businesses will fight back to try to make up for lost sales. If it stays limited to older nintendo and sega ROMs, they might slip under the radar... but I don't know anymore.

"Yeah, look at the whining by authors about Amazon selling used
books."

Yes, but the authors were actively referring people to Amazon, only to
have Amazon switch it to a sale that wasn't netting the author a
regular royalty. Amazon may be free to sell used books, but authors
are also free to pick and choose which book sellers they promote.

This is indeed a great idea, but just imagine the outrage that book publishers would have if someone tried to set up a large, public repository where someone could borrow books, read them, and return them! Oh, wait...

I'm a big fan of blockbuster. 90% of the stuff out there is crap. I shouldn't have to purchase games that take less than a week to beat and have zero replay value. As I see it, if U rent it from blockbuster instead of buying it for $50, I'm saving $45 and essentially getting the same playtime out of it. Same thing for a lot of movies. If these media companies want people to buy their products instead of renting them, they could try coming out with products people actually want to own for longer than a week.

Games I know are probably different, do they obtain a special license to rent

In the United States, it's illegal to rent PC software without a license from the publisher (17 USC 109(b)(1) [cornell.edu]). PC software means a computer program designed for a computer that isn't primarily marketed to play video games.

"But does a form factor and a pin assignment count as copy
protection?"

All Nintendo has to do is say that it was intended as such. As an
added bonus, the catridge format had the advantage of being a fairly
effective form of copy protection, especially in a non-emulated
context. Sure it was bypassable, but the mechanisms for bypassing
cartridge-based protection tended to be fairly elaborate. In
contrast, the Dreamcast protection was almost non-existent (with an
unmodified Dreamcast being able to boot cracked, burned games) and the
Playstation's protection was a bit better (requiring a mod chip).

The fact that Nintendo made most of the NES cartridge specs PUBLIC in Nintendo Power magazine during the third year of publication kind of blows "anybody who reverse engineers our NES cart edge bus is breaking trade secret law" out of the water.

As an added bonus, the catridge format had the advantage of being a fairly effective form of copy protection, especially in a non-emulated context.

Are you saying emulation is illegal? Try telling that to the developers of Wine [winehq.org] and Bochs [sourceforge.net]. If, on the other hand, you merely claim that Game Paks were physically hard to copy, then look at all the pirate multicarts you can pick up in HK.

Sure it was bypassable, but the mechanisms for bypassing cartridge-based protection tended to be fairly elaborate.

I understand that Nintendo 64 Game Paks and later Super NES Game Paks (the one with the SA-1 coprocessor) had a small amount of protection against homebuilt dumping machines, but there is NO protection on Famicom, Game Boy, or Game Boy Advance Game Paks: just write the address, read the data. Write the address, read the data. From there, you can construct a complete backup copy of the binary.

In contrast, the Dreamcast protection was almost non-existent (with an unmodified Dreamcast being able to boot cracked, burned games)

That's about how much protection there is on GB and GBA, and homebrew developers [gbadev.org] like it.

When you buy or play old games you aren't at the store buying new ones.

Yes, but that doesn't prove your point. Even without this system I'm not at the store buying new games. I haven't bought a new game in years -- I wait for some sucker to shell out $40-$60.00 for a new title, play it for a few weeks, then sell it used to me for less than half price (usually $20)because that's all it's worth to me.

Let's go back and talk about business dynamics for a moment, though, since that's the title of this thread. The software industry is operating on the Economics 101 rule that scarcity increases demand -- while true for hard goods (food, shelter, clothing) with items that can be reproduced by the consumer at almost zero cost (e.g. software) it doesn't apply.
It's all about market forces. Does the company want to make a high profit margin on a low volume (the mainstream software industry approach) or a low profit on a high volume? IOW, would a certain software company sell more than 4x as many copies of their Home OS if they dropped the price from $99 to $25? I believe so and I've seen market studies to back that assumption. That, IMO, is the solution to piracy -- sell more product at an affordable price which will reduce the incentive to steal. Much of piracy is a statement from the consumer to the producer; "your product is not worth the cost."

Let's think about expensive software packages: Office suites, voice control software, CAD packages, graphics/layout software, etc. Stuff you'd never consider shelling out $300-$1000+ for but would love to own for $30.00 just to "try out" or use on some small project. Think the publisher's would sell enough lower-priced items to break even or increase their incomes? I do.

As much as we all love to hate them, the movie houses are beginning to recognize this -- DVD movies prices are falling, selling for around $20.00 and offering lots of new features while videogame prices hover around $45.00 and CD audio costs are somwhere around $18.00. Again, think about the prices -- how many of you would "take a chance" on some unfamiliar musician for $5, vs. paying $18? (hands go up in the audience) Think that has anything to do with the popularity of file-sharing networks? I do, and I think that the music studios need to recognize that they must compete with free by selling quality, diversity, and convenience. Much of that applies to the other industries, too.

But in the end, it's not my decision to make 'cause I'm not in charge of the studios, or the software houses. I'm just a jerk at the bottom of the consumer chain being ignored by the marketing weasels at the aforementioned empires. I've lived without their products for this long, and I guess I'll continue. It's their decision. Rant over.

Are there any of the older video game companies offerin thier old games for purchase? (in any format) Or is it pretty much lawers protecting IP that the company no longer uses. If that's the case it seems like a big waste of $ to me.

The reason is that Nintendo, unlike other game companies, still makes money off of their old games. Notice the three Super Mario Advance games are exact copies of Mario 2, Mario World, and Yoshi's Island? Other companies like Sega do not re-relase their old games, like Sonic 2, in their exactly the same as original forms. So while companies like Sega and Sony or Arcade machine makers aren't hurt by roms, Nintendo very much is. If you download Mario 2 for free, that's one less copy of Mario Advance they sell. If you download a copy of Sonic 2, the only one who gets hurt is the used game store in the mall.

I'm still pissed however that Mario Advance 3 is Yoshi's Island and not Super Mario 3. What's up with that? The last time Mario 3 was put out was Mario All Stars for SNES. I want it for GBA, like now-ish.

Plenty of NES emulators out there for the GBA, you still have your SMB3 cart riiiiight? Dump it to mem card, use emulator, play on GBA, enjoy.

Ok so it won't get the nifty graphical enhancements of a remake but. . ..

Oh and yes Nintendo still makes money off of/remaking/ their old games, but letting somebody play a game on the computer for a small fee would hardly negate selling that game for a console system or some such. And in fact they could make tons of money with a console hooked up to the internet that could rent out their older games online, heh. NES games are by far small enough to transmit over even a dial-up connection, so. . ..

Exactly. Sega Smash Pack for GBA is already out (or coming out soon, depending on where you are). Also, Namco, Konami, Midway, and Atari, among others, seem to put out classic compilations for almost every platform now and then.

The fact is, even though not everybody is smart enough to cash in on their older titles, pretty much every smart company reserves the right to do this. The only real shame is when good game licenses are owned by people who are content just to let the classics die.

Nintendo has been rereleasing a lot of their old NES and SNES games on the Gameboy Color & Gameboy Advance systems. Most Mario games have been rereleased, or will be soon. They attempted porting the older Zelda games, but the GB screen was too small for it. Zelda 3 will make it to the GBA though.

Various other old NES games are included within Animal Crossing, which is coming to the GameCube later this year.

So, the answer is, Nintendo would lose money by getting involved in schemes allowing people to download ROMs.

I believe Capcom let out some of their ROMs a few years back. There was company that put out some high-quality PC joysticks called HotRods or something that basically gave the user Street Fighter-style joysticks complete with cherry buttons in a 2x3 configuration. Packaged with the joysticks were copies of MAME and a bunch of legal Capcom ROMs, like 1941, Commando, Strider and UN Squadron. Pretty cool. (Although most of the games ran better on Callus...)

I agree, how long until someone cracks the protection and just copies the rom to be played forever? This is why Microsoft want's to develop palladium, so they can disable any software that would provide this "cracking" service. It boils down to, "If you can expierence (view/listen/play) a digital content, you can copy that digital content"

good idea! Public libraries have been operating like this for centuries.

Not to mention Blockbuster and Hollywood Video.

In both of those examples, the content is
still embedded in a matrix of protons and neutrons
when it is handed over to the renter or patron.

Lawmakers and courts seem to have decided
that this is OK, because it makes the content
seem enough like real objects (that you can
touch and feel) for them to understand.

Transmitting the ROM images over the Internet
avoids the step of physically transfering the protons and
neutrons to the users. Rightly or wrongly, the
lawmakers and courts will not be able to relate
to this, and it will be judged to be illegal.

(It doesn't
matter that only one user is assigned to the
protons and neutrons at a time. The fact that they
weren't sent to the user will be the deciding
factor. The law may not say this in so many words, but
the net effect of any court rulings will be the same.)

Physically moving around heavy particles along
with abstract content seems to set a "threshold
of inconvenience" which affirms that
your usage of the associated content is fair and morally
upstanding.

I suspect that industry would be more receptive to these online libraries if goverments extended such programs into this area.

Quite the opposite, actually. Publishers have hated the idea of public libraries for literally centuries. They have done everything they can to restrict, reduce, and eventually rub out libraries. Only the fact that the public library is so patently a public good -- that it engenders warm, fuzzy feelings in John Q. Voter -- has protected it so far.

In the DMCA hearings, who was just about the only group looking out for anything close to what we might call the average citizen? The librarians' group.

Doubt me? Ask a former Registrar of Copyright, Ralph Oman, who in a letter [washingtonpost.com] to The Washington Post bewhined that

Mr. Olman was speaking in favor of the Sonny Bono Public Domain Pillage Act (also known as the "Copyright Term Extension Act" [chronicle.com]). He bewailed the loss of revenues such Communists and anarchists as the Boy Scouts cost the poor, abused Content Cartel every year. (Blatant plug: The Post published my reply [ubidubium.net]. Like a schlub, I've lost the actual WashPost link.)

The evidence is, the Content Cartel would prefer to see libraries go gently into that dark night of perpetual copyright extension, indefinite "access controls", and a denuded public domain.

"I think its pretty reasonable, but I doubt that the industries will agree."

Well, I hope these guys have good lawyers, because I doubt that the video game industry is going to just watch this site,and the cops in South Carolina (The apparent home of Jonathan Cooper, the site admin.) aren't among the nation's more liberal police forces. If he's lucky they'll just try piracy charges via some DA unable to comprehend software licensing and such, and not try to sneak in some DMCA violation on top of it.

Blockbuster pays on the order of 10 times as much for a copy of a video that they can rent as compared to the copy that you can pick up at Target. Not having worked at a rental store or anything, I can't speak definatively, but aren't there special restrictions on rentals that extend beyond fair use? And may not this apply? If not in the case of console roms, at least, perhaps in the case of "other media", as mentioned?

Nope they actualy just get normal DVD's etc to use. They tried to make them more expensive in AU that didn't fly and they havent tried it in the states (but I may well be wrong) Physical representations of things like videos DVD's CD's etc historicaly have be property as long as they stay in the same form, that may be the snag that they are moving around digital bits not say overnight mailing you an actual rom. Our US leaders think that for some strange reasont he two things are different and to some extent they are I could rip a NES cart you could to but joe sixpack dosent want to cant (remember this guy cant get his VCR clock programed and is confused by to many desktop icons) as the barrier to pirating roms lowers to cheap harddrive space, broadband Internet and some adware application that joe six pack can get his local computer expert to install companies get a lot more worried about this sort of thing.

I know that my local video store once had PC software for rent, but had to pull it. Guy in the department told me it was because the video game suppliers/wholesalers complained that the copies weren't licensed for rental, only sale. He said the companies wouldn't sell them rental licenses for PC titles like they would for playstation(2)/n64 (this was pre-ps3/gamecube), because of piracy problems so rampant on PC's. Thought it was interesting.

Blockbuster pays on the order of 10 times as much for a copy of a video that they can rent as compared to the copy that you can pick up at Target.

I am not an expert on this, but I think there are two reasons why this is true.

0) Blockbuster will have the video sooner than Target will sell it... and the movie companies jack up the prices on the early sales. First the movies are in the theatres long enough to make money; then the movies are rental-only long enough to make rental money; last they release the movies for sale at Target. Note that Blockbuster can afford to pay big prices for movies since they will make big money on the rentals.

1) The license for the Target movie is for home showing only. Blockbuster must be getting the movies under a different license.

Blockbuster pays on the order of 10 times as much for a copy of a video that they can rent as compared to the copy that you can pick up at Target

Depends.

For movies that didn't make it "big" you can often rent the movie before you can buy it widely -- the studios make VHS copies available at "rental pricing" that is around $80-90 per tape. Takes awhile to recoup the cost, but since you can't get it otherwise, they'll probably make the money back on it (note -- you can actually buy these as a consumer, but you have to find a distributor who will sell to the public and you have to be willing to pay the $80-90 for a single movie).

For big releases, and all DVDs, the movie industry has discovered that they're better off pricing the tapes at prices that consumers would be willing to buy a copy instead of just renting it. Blockbuster and other rental companies simply buy the same movie you can at Target, Best Buy, etc., stick it in their own box, and rent it. They (probably) pay around $5-15 per tape/DVD, which is recouped in 1-3 rentals.

DVD never got into the chasm between rental and "priced-to-own" dates, and isn't likely to. There have been a few industry movements to change this, but they've failed pretty spectacularly so far.

What else could you possibly expect, considering what the media companies pay for Premium Legislative Services in the US and the EU. The idea that you do not own what you have bought is absurd, but the bankrolled politicians are turning that hallucination into a scary reality.

Commercial rental of copyrighted works is governed by its own set of rules. Libraries and some other institutions are special. Perhaps this would work if it falls under fair use, but then you may not have to worry about "lending" anyway.

If anyone from Nintendo, Sega, etc are listening, here is how you can either end or severly limit rom trading:

License a user-built emulator, re-rip every cart for your system, and offer them for sale. Make it cheap- maybe $1 per Rom, or maybe charge per megabyte, or release compilation CDs, or whatever. Don't make it too expensive. Then, advertise it a LOT. Make the emulator easy to use, maybe even have it integrated with the buying system so you can play a demo of the game before you buy it, then you can just enter your CC# into the program and you've got the whole thing.

I like my Roms, and I could get them free by lurking around a dozen shady P2P networks or download sites with gay porn banners for hours, or I could just pay a few dollars to get the same without any work on my part.

Sega actually does something close to this already, they've licensed the KGen emulator and sell a couple of the Sonic games for PCs in stores. I know this because I own them all.

They don't sell any carts anymore, so they've stopped making money from them. With this system, they'll start making money from them again, as well as get an ASSLOAD of publicity.

If I were in a position to do it (hell knows I'd love to work for Nintendo...) I'd do pretty much what you just said, but stick to the compilation idea. An emulator, a nice front end for choosing your game, and a couple thousand roms would probably fit nicely onto one of those GameCube discs. Bundle it with an old-school NES controller that's been adapted to plug into the cube, and sell it for $30-$40. Do the same thing on cd or dvd for the pc market, with a usb version of the controller. Hell, if the licensing fees aren't prohibitive, release versions for XBox and PS2. Pay attention Nintendo: THERE IS MONEY TO BE MADE HERE.

I think a big question is how much the copyright holder should be receiving for each rom. I am not an industry insider, I have no idea what royalties are for video games, but I doubt each copyright holder would be thrilled about only making a few cents per game- especially if they had any Q&A.

$40 divided by 1,000 roms is 4 cents each- and would be much less (2-3 cents) when you account for the cost of providing the compilation itself. Is that fair? It's certainly a far cry from the original poster's $1 per game.

On a side note, I own an infocom text game CD-ROM collection, and it's neat. Really neat. But infocom had long been bankrupt and their assets sold to activision, and text games are far from popular, so they probably didn't have any choice (whereas NES games and newer still have large potential markets)

The only issue I can see with this : royalty compensation to the original authors. I've never seen an agreement that developers must sign with NOA (or any of the console manufacturers), so I'm not sure if NOA has the right to redistribute the ROMs for ALL of the carts for ALL of their systems. With the sheer number of carts out there, it would be hard to track down each and every developer (many of them are probably defunct) to send checks for the ROMs purchased.

But I do agree with the sentiment -- at the bare minimum NOA should do this for their own titles. I for one would pay a few bucks for each ROM, for each Nintendo first-party title.

You're ignoring the fact that "free" is infinitely less expensive than "cheap." The same people that won't spend a couple of bucks to snag the actual carts used and cheap are the same ones that wouldn't pay a couple of bucks for a rom dump. Of course there are exceptions, but publishers don't necessarily profit on exceptions.

Meanwhile, publishers would be forced to support their emulators for actual customers.

I'm fairly confident that this is the reason why we don't see more emulated Sega PC releases. There's too little reward. Those Smash Pack and Sonic collection CDs for Windows go for pennies in the bargain bin.

Ok, a little off-topic, perhaps, but bear with me. Suppose we view older videogames as "classics". That is, we consider Pac-man [klov.com] and Space Invaders [klov.com] as the videogame analogue of David Copperfield or Beowulf (pardon my Anglocentrist literary background or whatever). Then this is perhaps a way to make it clear to people that it becomes increasingly difficult to bear the starvation of the public domain.

Let me take an example close to my own heart: Commodore 64 games. I want to be able to share these games with my kids, much like my old man showed me his Classics Illustrated [nostalgiazone.com] comic books. (They are classic literature in a form that kids could digest more easily as teenagers when he was growing up.) The problem is that I could be in the unfortunate situation of not having hardware that works or even software in a usable medium. Already, I've seen 5.25" diskettes go bad, so I'm left getting things off of c64.com [c64.com] where they have buckets of games in disk or tape image format. But these kinds of things are the things that make game companies cry foul. So I end up using an emulator like VICE [t-online.de] and these images to show off parts of my childhood. So whereas my dad has some slowly deteriorating comic books to show 50 years after his childhood, at the same point in my life I may have to do something that I might otherwise feel is illegal.

In short, I think our culture will eventually feel the need for a richer public domain and we need a way to get the public on board for getting everlasting copyright extension to stop. I think that pointing out that they may not be able to show their kids the games they grew up on would be one way to explain this to normals that don't follow Slashdot.

FWIW, I plan on making a case-by-case choice from here on out in my life as to whether I think a company is benefitting unfairly from copyright extensions. If my kid asks for a tape of Steamboat Willie (the first Mickey Mouse cartoon) I might just get a pirate copy and not feel one bit of remorse about it. They bought an illegal extension of copyright and I don't think they deserve it one bit. And in 20 years, I might be feeling the same way about Commodore games and other media I grew up on, provided my borg implant lets me think such thoughts.;^)

I don't think many here will disagree with you feelings on the situation. What you're proposing is illegal, though many of us here also don't believe it should, and that the whole copyright situation has gotten out of hand.

Bruce Perens planned a public demonstration defying the DMCA. Furthermore, it was carefully defined to defy *only* the DMCA and not the traditional concepts of copyright, and didn't overextend the common ideas of free use.

He was willing to go to jail for it, and we wished him well. Unfortunately his employer felt differently, and presumably he felt he could be of more service where he was rather than in jail.

But before coming up with some "copyright protest" action, try to separate the protest from the gimme side of it.

I'm protesting too, but I've pretty much quit listening to music. I don't buy CDs, neither do I rip. Recently I began learning about Indie Music, and plan to pursue that further as an alternative way to get tunes back into my life. I'm finally deciding that I'm going to get the old turntable running, and rip my old vinyl rather than re-purchase any of my collection on CD. I can't quite take the same action on movies, though my attendence is way down. I also put forth a concerted effort never to see a first-run release in the evening, going for either matinee or second run at the cheap-seats theatre. A bit of a weasly protest, but I *am* denying them a goodly chunk of my revenue. I am not willing to go to jail, so I tailor my protests accordingly. I also write to my Congressional delegation, and Leahy is due for a scorcher.

If this was legal, then where is the N64 emulator and N64 roms? And why doesn't NetFlix.com start checking out DVDs in online form... it would reduce tons of overhead as far as shipping goes.

Ultimately, he does not own the copyright of those games, and making them availiable online would probably count as an unauthorized form of distribution.

I'm not disputing the chance that this guy owns all of these titles, mind you.... Though I've never heard of "Hogan's Ally", most of the games on that list are common, and the fact that he only has 2 Mega Man ROMs up indicate that he may indeed be late to the game as far as collecting goes.

These roms have no real market value as far as the games themselves go. They're not sold new anymore, and for the most part, they're not sold used either, unless you can find ebay auctions or a garage sale. However, the roms for all of them are available online. They're small, easy to transfer, and players are available on multiple platforms. The cat is out of the bag, and Nintendo and ohers don't have much they can lose from this, but obviously, they'll want their piece of the pie.

Has anyone tried to work with them on this? About the only thing the games are worth to them is the IP rights to the artisitic content. Of course, from my point of view anyway, that content value would only increase if it had a greater market saturation. Nintendo can reasonably expect $0 from the sale of game cartridges at this point. Therefore, if ANY amount of money is offered in exchange for legitimizing the rom sceme, they might be willing to go for it. Its a steady revenue stream from somewhere that no previous revenue exists, and with no work on their part.They might just go along with it, grant permission, and forget about it. Just throw a couple ads on the site, provide nintendo with 100% of the profit (after bandwidth and other expenses) and they might go for it. At least this way there would be no concern about legal battles, assuming they go for it.

I appreciate their usefulness, but what's stopping anyone from going out and picking up old games? Two days ago my roommate bought an atari 2600 and 20 games for 10 bucks. Are people really that lazy that they won't go to a local video game store which sells old games? (of which we have at least two in Champaign). I could understand using roms if you can't get ahold of the cartridge-stuff like Ogre Battle or Chrono Trigger are really, really hard to find. But on the whole, I think getting ROMs is just laziness, and as long as the games are available for purchase if you look hard enough, they shouldn't be downloaded.

I've spent the last 3 years building up a pretty decent classic cartridge collection. At this point it's up to several hundred or so. Not a single one was purchased at a video game store, as the oldest thing anyone sells here (Canadian city with a population of over 700,000) is Sony Playstation games. The profit just isn't high enough for stores to carry Super Nintendo, let alone Atari games anymore.

How did I accquire all of this? 3 solid years of hitting several hundred garage sales per month, and visiting the local junk shops at least once a week. That's a hell of a lot of work, and it's a good thing I really enjoy doing it. But there are literally hundreds of games I've always wanted to play, and simply cannot find. I'd much prefer the original, both for the authenticity in playing, and the collecting factor - but in many cases, I simply have no choice but to download the ROM image. Paying some guy on Ebay $200 for a rare Atari game doesn't put one dime more into the pocket of the copyright owner, so who's it hurting?

While dust certainly is a problem for any electrical connection, for the most part the old blowing trick really doesn't do very much. The main problem with Nintendo cartridges (all video game systems, eventually) is corrosion. The cartridge contacts build up an incredible amount of gunk on them, eventually rendering them almost useless. This problem is made worse by the fact that cartridges and the connectors within a console are often made from different metals, and some funky electolytic reaction goes on (chemistry majors feel free to expand upon this).

The original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was notorious for this, due to the way the cartridges go into the unit. Remember being able to slide the cartridge back and forth even when it was as firmly inserted as possible? Also notice how no other game company has again made anything close to the NES, and all used very firm connections? A dirty NES cartridge has to be EXACTLY aligned in the console, which is pretty tricky. Taking it out and blowing on it more likely just meant that you put it back in a slightly different alignment, hopefully one in which the contacts were nicely connected.

The solution? Good old rubbing alcohol. Dip a Q-tip in it, and rub the hell out of the cartridge contacts. Any NES cartridge that saw much use will give you a rather black Q-tip. You can usually use quite a lot of force (in fact, you may need to). I've restored hundreds of NES games this way (and a few for other systems, but 99% of the problem is that damn NES console !@$$!@#!@$), and have yet to see one that doesn't work eventually. The consoles themselves, strangely, seem to require little to no cleaning.

This is just what cost mp3.com 400 million bucks. The problem here is that when you copy the ROM from the chip to disk, you are making a copy of a copyrighted product for commercial use. This is illegal. It doesn't matter what you do with the ROM images on disk, once you make the copy you're screwed. The only way for this to work would be to rent the physical rom chips.

The problem can be traced bck to the most basic economic principle: supply and demand. The fact that there are so many people out there who are trying to create the latest flavor of file-sharing only proves that there is still a huge demand for media. Naturally, the industries do whatever they can to make a buck off of that demand, and prevent anyone from taking that market-share away from them.

Which brings me to the main point of this post. The various media industries view us not as citizens, but consumers. We all know this, and many of us resent that fact. The solution? Stop being a consumer!

I am not a psychologist, by any stretch, but I would suggest that some people are downright addicted to media. For some, they need to have music playing all the time. Others seek only to collect hunderds of gigabytes of media they may or may not have any intention of viewing/listening to. These are the people the xxAA's want to sink their hooks into, because there is the most money to be made from them.

So how about this. Cast off your media addiction and go do stuff that shows the various entertainment industries that they and their product are not needed/wanted. Find other hobbies/activities that don't support the monopolistic organizations. Maybe pushing the idea too far here, but maybe take up a sport!

We will always be considered consumers first as long as we behave like consumers. If we want to show the entertainment industries that we don't like what they're doing, remove yourself from their market pool.

Ideas for things to do in your spare time other than buy stuff from other people.

1) Learn to cook. Baking cookies and breads for friends can be very theraputic and win you more friends.

2) Learn to homebrew. Brewing beer, making wine, or even mead can certainly win you friends.

3) Join a club or other organization. A couple come to mind: 3a) Society for Creative Anachronism (don't need even electricity for most of their activities, how's THAT for not consuming?)3b) NTrak Model Trains3c) Pick up Ham Radio3d) Open Source Software. Lots of projects out there.

4) Make your own music. Heck, someone has to make it.

5) Fly a kite.

6) Read to your kids/friends/parents.

7) Play a board game (anything from "Sorry" or "Monopoly" to "Munchkins", "Hackers", or "The Settlers of Catan"

8) Woodworking. Talk about a hacker heaven... turn trees into anything you want!

9) Sports. No, not watching them, particiapting. Try Baseball, Soccer, Football, Rugby. Or if you are more of a loner, Cycling, Running, Swimming, Inline Skating. Or possibly even my favorites: Fencing, Volleyball and Rockclimbing.

10) Art. Paiting, poetry, pottery, photography.

There, 10 things that anyone can do and do well with a minor bit of practice that do not consume anything from the media giants. Some of them are even healthy and might reduce your waistline. At least one of them can get you drunk!

Music is a sport. It is just as good as a verb as it is when you treat it as an object. It's a form of emotional communication, it's a form of aerobics (well, drumming), it's a form of meditation, a thousand things beyond merely producing objects for sale in a market.

Some of the most fun I've had in my life has been playing music, just jammin', with people who were able to seize on musical ideas I put out, toss them back to me, grab onto trickier ideas, take them a different direction- it's like playing chess with a bunch of people all of whom are on the SAME SIDE. That would be a jazzy, improv-type approach- if they're rock and roll people, jump around, bang out some loud noises.

If you're already thinking about how to bottle that and sell it to consumers, you're not really there for it- pack up your instrument and go home!

The day I can't legally JAM on the melody to 'Free Bird' or something, shoot me.

Which brings me to the main point of this post. The various media industries view us not as citizens, but consumers.

Ummm. The "media industries" are not countries, so why would they ever view you as "citizens" instead of "consumers"?

The solution? Stop being a consumer!

So how about this. Cast off your media addiction and go do stuff that shows the various entertainment industries that they and their product are not needed/wanted. Find other hobbies/activities that don't support the monopolistic organizations. Maybe pushing the idea too far here, but maybe take up a sport!

This is the lamest argument I've seen in a long time. Let's think it through a bit...

We're not pissed off because the RIAA/MPAA is selling these items to us. We WANT these things. They provide ENTERTAINMENT. (Just like sports provide entertainment.)

We're pissed off because they are trying to sell us things we want, without giving us full control over those things after we've purchased them.

However, your idea to abstain from everything is not reasonable. The punishment doesn't fit the crime. In other words, you'll never get enough people to join a boycott like this, because the shit the MPAA/RIAA are pulling is not egregious enough to most people for this boycott to make a dent.

Another way of thinking about it is: I love Lord of the Rings way more than I hate the RIAA's actions.

I think a more successful course of action is to practice civil disobedience, whenever possible. In this case, we're not necessarily trying to change any laws (although that would be nice), we are primarily interested in making it more obvious to the RIAA/MPAA that things have changed.

Share MP3's of your albums with your friends. Crack encryption on products you've purchased, for the purpose of being able to use them without any restrictions. Crack encryption that will be used to limit the usefulness of HDTV or other digital broadcast signals that you've purchased and receive in your home. Break macrovision's and other companies' attempts to prevent you from ripping CD/DVD's to your hard drive. Create programs that make it easy to move television shows from your PVR to your computer, and vice versa. Avoid hardware that uses proprietary media formats whenever possible.

These are actions which could conceivably work to decimate the MPAA/RIAA's old-school business models that no longer apply in the digital world, and yet give me no moral pause (as sharing my MP3's with the entire world does).

These are things that don't require EVERYONE to do something in order for them to work -- only one anonymous person is needed to write a decryption program and post it on the internet, for example.

The MPAA/RIAA will eventually be forced to revise their business model, or die. If they want to survive, they will become digital-friendly. Sell unencumbered digital bundles of music or movies for far less than you're trying to sell physical products. They cost less to produce and distribute, after all.

If you make it easier for people to buy than to steal, you'll make money hand over fist.

Anybody remember the my.mp3.com lawsuit? The court found that making a copy of a copyrighted work is infringement, even if there's a real, honest, copy out there somewhere restricting who gets access to the copy.

So as far as the law's concerned, it doesn't seem to matter one bit that there's a stack of legal cartridges in the corner. If copies have been made and are downloaded to customers, it's infringement.

Just another area where common sense and judicial rulings disagree. Of course, my.mp3.com was just one case, and maybe another judge will disagree.

It's just more convenient this way. I remember there was a business in town a while back that rented software for the PC: games, applications, antivirus software (you know for those only needing temporary virus protection!). They lasted for many years until they were threatened with a legal suit because the rented software (typically for 3 or 5 days) which promoted piracy. So they shutdown for a few days then came back with a new policy: selling the software at their old rental price and after 5 days, if you haven't returned it (for any reason at all - no questions asked) then they would charge you full price.

So if they physically have the ROM and can provide a good checkout system, then how could this be any different than renting the game at blockbuster? Even if the ROM could be copied...the same argument could be said about renting the game at a video store. Besides, SNES and NES games are getting to the point that they aren't selling hardly at all.

I don't think Nintendo would like this one bit [nintendo.com]. They state quite clearly that they are against ROMs, Emulators, and the like. I'm pretty positive Nintendo would come down hard on anyone who would try such a thing. I even know of "underground" ROM sites that don't put up any Nintendo ROMs for download for fear of being shut down by Nintendo. They're highly agressive with their IP.

mp3.com tried this, remember -- my.mp3.com. there defense was that they required people to prove they owned the CDs, and then they'd let them listen to the music. That's even more controlled than this, which lets you access stuff you have never bought.

Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a), unless authorized by the owners of copyright in the sound recording or the owner of copyright in a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), and in the case of a sound recording in the musical works embodied therein, neither the owner of a particular phonorecord nor any person in possession of a particular copy of a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), may, for the purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage, dispose of, or authorize the disposal of, the possession of that phonorecord or computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program) by rental, lease, or lending, or by any other act or practice in the nature of rental, lease, or lending.

It didn't work for my.mp3.com, so I don't know why it would work here. As I recall, the judge in that case effectively ruled that even though the company guaranteed that a particular copy of music was directly linked to a real CD, it was still somehow "different" from the original and so they were found to be distributing an illegal copy.

It's not that the mp3's were "different" it was that they were "copies". Because mp3.com reproduced, or made copies of the cds in a commercial setting, it was copyright infringement.

The same would be true if I purchased ever vhs tape in existance, and then burnt dvd's of all of them and rented the dvd's. It doesn't matter if I only burn one dvd per vhs tape, because it's still a copy, which violates copyright.

As long as a check-in/check-out model exists, and possession of the intellectual property actually changes hands, there will be people creating software to override the application security to obtain copies. This would probably be one of the main arguments against such as system from the media companies. Perfect example of this is Streamripper for Shoutcast. Shoutcast streams audio through winamp, and Streamripper allows you to rip the Mp3's from the stream.

Does anybody remember the SEGA Interactive cable thingy which plugged into your Genesis and let you download games for a period of time?
Or am I mis-remembering a vaporware concept - I remember seeing it listed as an option by my cable company, but never saw anybody using it.
(My appologies for the double post, I hit the return key prematurely!)

A lot of posts are citing "fair use," which doesn't apply in this situation - there is no "fair use" doctrine when it comes to commercial purposes. The law states that you may not, either directly, or indirectly, profit from another's copyright without their express permission. This legal stipulation rules out almost any type of rental model of copyrighted material that isn't endorsed by the copyright's owner.

While the library example is a compelling argument to defend a service like this, libraries aren't restricted by the same laws. Libraries are exempt for two reasons: First, as public institutions, they receive special protection. Second, they aren't charging for their service, and so they aren't profiting from the rental of the material (they don't rent material, but loan it - a small, but important distinction).

In contrast, Video rental stores (at least all those I'm aware of) do pay a premium on their VHS and DVD purchases to buy what is essentially a rental license. That's why it's legal for them to rent movies, but not for you, who doesn't hold that licence, to do it. Commercial use of someone else's copyright is restricted by law.

Four years ago I had a grand plan to use a very similar model to distribute music. Before doing extensive research I even thought I could circumvent the stipulation because I wasn't going to charge, but was going to generate my avenue via advertising. Unfortunately, the "directly, or indirectly" clause has been interpreted broadly - far more broadly than advertising.

Similarly, because of the way the law is worded, I just don't think there's a way to legally distribute ROM's without entering into an agreement with the copyright holders (I looked into this relatively deeply a couple years ago as well). I do, however, hope that someone does manage to successfully enter into an arrangement with these companies - many of those old games are just too good to lose to time.

Back in my day they used to have a scheme where you could play any available videogame for 10p (er, 25c for the yanks?). This whole ROM sharing thing went on too, but was more of a one-way process when the big kids wanted a game.

Because there is still money to be made from them, no matter how old or tired they are. Hell, if they would just SELL them they could make a killing.

Haha. Do you believe your own drivel? The intellectual property industry has shown time and time again, that they will crack down on infringement even when there is no chance of it hurting their revenue stream.

No, they do it for a different reason. Please allow me to indulge in a metaphor. Imagine that they sell bottled water. Not a bad business to be in, everyone has to drink, right? Plus, they're just selling water, and still getting $1.29 per bottle at 7-Eleven. They could easily get rich, lazy, and still have a big inheritance for their spoiled brats... so what's the problem? Well, there just isn't any way to grow this business past a certain point, no matter how well you run it.

Unless.... what if everyone lived in a desert? And they were the only ones selling water? They could ask any price they wanted, and you would either buy their water or die! Fuck $1.29, $19,995 + tax sounds alot better. You can take all they have, every last cent. And as long as they don't die, sooner or later, they'll have more to spend. They're already tooled up, and whatever investment they need to engage in, they've got plenty of capital for. If only they could somehow build a desert all around us, without us noticing...

The MPAA/RIAA/SBA are all busy building deserts. They're busy making sure the only entertainment you can have, is bought from them.

Blockbuster was able to fight off Nintendo and Sega back in the late 80s/early 90s because they had a lot of revenues to hire good attorneys with. As cool as this operation appears to be, I don't get the impression from looking at their site that they are extremely well-funded, and as such, despite the overwhelming favor of legal precedent a competent trial lawyer could bring to bear in their case, The flashier, more connected legal goons Nintendo could easily throw at these guys will likely argue that the fact these guys are operating on the internet makes it all different, and they should be shut down. I wish CC luck, as they are already on Nintendo's radar. However, the only legal correspondence from the company was in July, 2001, so they may actually be giving them a pass.

Now, if they start doing the same sort of distribution with other systems, especially more modern ones (playstation, PS2, Gamecube, or heaven-forbid XBox), they might find themselves in significantly hotter water. In that case I'd recommend the strategy of getting big, fast, charging a good monthly membership fee for content use, and building a revenue base to hire a good legal team.

The more that I read about file sharing, the more that I realize that most "freedom of information" types on the Internet are not concerned about distributing information. They're notconcerned about preserving information for future use. They're only concerned about getting copyrighted material for free. Copyright owners be damned, I want my free
music/movies/ROMs/software.

Thank goodness, a reasoned voice in the cacophony of hypocrisy. I often wonder what kind of reception would be had if someone setup a P2P service with all sorts of GPL'ed software, with all the GPL licenses/comments/etc. stripped, out allowing users to escape encumbrances which really aren't different in spirit than the encumbrances attached to the properties most commonly traded on these networks.

The 24-hour trial period is a myth. However, reverse engineering old consoles is not legally shaky. Look at the faqs on MAME.org or some other respected emulator site.

As for dumping cartridges, other then any possible DMCA concerns, it is 100% legal. Fair use, remember? As for transferring copyrighted material from an owner to a borrower, I did that last week at a local hangout known as the 'library', which allowed me to grab a few books, music CDs, and VHS tapes.

As for 'copyright infringement', I would be willing to bet that in 50 years, the only reason that some of the early 70's and 80's era games exist are because of emulators. Heck, right now, MAME emulates games that would be physically very difficult to find. Atari cartridges are also deteriorating over time. Sure, the guys who pirate the latest XBox and PS2 games are scum who aren't willing to pay for game developments, but there are guys who are into emulation for the old games which aren't available anymore. Games are a work of art, why let them be lost? Preservation has always been an admirable goal.

Is there such a thing? Every emulator site that I've ever been to has been populated by the scum of the Internet, pushing their warez as being legal and not an infringement on the intellectual property of hard working men and women. Someday, you'll make a piece of software, pour your heart into its development, and then watch as it's stolen by thousands of children downloading it from the Internet. Then tell me about how pirates aren't evil.

Re: Dumping cartridges, you can only do that if the EULA (in the back of game manuals) explicitly allows it. This site is hosting Nintendo games. I know for a fact that every licensed Nintendo game explicitly forbids copying of the games, including "dumping" the ROMs for "backup" purposes. The only exception is Gauntlet, one of the few non-licensed games for the NES. Now, whether Nintendo is justified in preventing copying is an argument for another time.

The library analogy is flawed. There are consequences when you move from meatspace to cyberspace, and that means that direct analogies are inadequate. The biggest problem is the easy with which you can copy the copyrighted work. In meatspace, such copying is irrelevant because of the time and materials involved, and even then, it is not exact. In cyberspace, the copy is simple (ROM is stored in memory, hell, I could write a 2-line program to save that to the hard disk). The copy is exact. The copy can be done thousands of times with no degredation. THAT is the difference between cyberspace and meatspace. And that is why this is illegal.

And I'm sure that the 14-year-old kiddies who are downloading these games are doing it for the "preservation of art". What a load of bullshit. If you honestly believe that people aren't downloading ROMs to play games for free, then I admire your naivete. Actually, no, admire isn't the right word.

As for your "legal backups", I point you to this comment [slashdot.org] that I made regarding the US Code of Laws, as well as this comment [slashdot.org] about the Audio Home Recording Act. If you would care to reply to any of these comments, please do so. I'm waiting for refutations of my readings.

Last time I checked I was no longer able to buy brand new original 8-bit Nintendo cartridges.

I still own a brand new 8-bit Nintendo.

It works fine.

I am prevented, from a legal standpoint, of any easy way to back up or restore games to and from cart's, as far as nintendo is concerned.

Nintendo may have this right, but in reality nintendo does not provide replacements for the cart's themselves, how do you deal with that?

What rights to software owners have when software is abandoned?

None?

It's one thing to pirate music you can go buy from a store, I tend to beleive it's another thing alltogether when you download a replacement copy of software you honestly do own -- but even if, the law has made it difficult to put the game back into a cart for play on the original system, so when you talk about roms+emulators, then everyone automatically assumes you stole XYZ and your a damn dirty ape just because that's what corporate america has spoon fed them.

Mabye you should start thinking more about freedom and less about being pissed at people who cry wolf early and often to preserve your rights.

What rights do car owners have when their car is abandoned by the manufacturer? If I own a 1980 Zephyr station wagon and the parts are no longer available for me to fix it, does that mean that I can go out, steal somebody else's car, and be legally free from ramifications? After all, the car was new when I bought it! And if the manufacturer chose to stop making them because they weren't in demand, that's not my fault! I should be able to take whatever car I want, because I bought one way back when!

Or, in your case of owning an NES but not the games, you own the engine and frame of the car, but not the seats. You should therefore be able to go out and steal seats, wheels, a drive shaft, car mats, and every other "accessory" to the car. After all, you have hardware that can use that, right? So you're entitled to them, right?

Maybe you should unplug for a while and try to understand that piracy is not good. Downloading copyrighted games is illegal, no matter how you slice it. Eventually, in several dozen years, they will fall to public domain as the copyrights expire. Then you can download them to your heart's content. But until then, you're breaking the law, and there's no way around that.

If my video game breaks, I would try to fix it (blowing on the contacts, cleaning the cart, etc). If it didn't work, I would throw the cartridge away and either get a new game (Super Mario Sunshine, a terrific game) or try to find another LEGAL copy of the original.

So remind me again why it's not legal for you to download the contents of the cartridge onto your own personal computer so that you could continue to enjoy it?

I don't understand your position here. You keep saying that it's illegal for you to make a backup copy for personal use. Why is that?

You people have to be kidding. "Sounds reasonable"? "Borrow" ROMS? "I wonder if this will allow an end-run around some of the questionable legality of file-sharing"? Here's a hint - NO!!!

So what you are saying is that it's illegal for me to loan my game cartridge to my friend for a couple of weeks. That the only way I can buy something and loan it to my buddy is to have him come over and play it on my game console?

Dispite what you may read on the Internet, it is not legal to make a "backup" copy of any modern media.

Care to tell me why I can't? Maybe you could cite some legal statute? Maybe a court case that backs up your point?

BTW, Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 of the U.S. Code allows for backup copies of media if they are non-commercial in nature and don't affect the marketability of the copyrighted work.

IANAL, but it seems to me that this backs up both sides arguments. First of all, it's technically a commercial use since there's a company behind this. Second, it affects the marketability of the games. However, on the other hand, it doesn't affect the games that are currently no longer on the market. Seems to me there really should be some place that I could go buy/play games that I can't get any other way.

This is one of the F***ed up arguments made by IP apologists. Once someone makes something and sells it, that it should be that persons property forever. That was never the intention of copyright, nor should it be. Nowadays we have great novels that are out of print, and nobody is allowed to print new copies of them because the current copyright holders won't let them. The same goes for video games and movies. If you're going to let this stuff just sit in a vault somewhere tell your copyright expires, then you should lose the copyright to it. It's far too valuable to waste like that.

the fair use...including such use by reproduction in copies...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching... scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright

(emphasis mine)

Exactly where in there does it say "You're allowed to make a copy and make it available for all the world to copy at their leisure"?

Perhaps you were talking about Section 108 [cornell.edu], but I find that hard to believe because of paragraph c2 says:

The right of reproduction...solely for the purpose of replacement of a copy [is legal]...if - (2)any such copy...that is reproduced in digital format is not made available to the public in that format outside the premises of the library...

I eagerly await your reply to this explicit statement that digital copies made available to the public are illegal.

Despite what you may have read in your EULA, it is legal to make a backup copy of any modern media. Also, emulators are not on shaky ground because of reverse engineering, since reverse engineering is also legal. Granted, there may be DMCA implications if the result of reverse engineering an access mechanism is the ability to escape it, but that's really a separate issue. It's also legal to borrow a copyrighted work from someone.

Not that I think this will fly, nor that it should. Obviously "borrow" is going to become "copy", at which point it's just sharing copyrighted material no different than Napster. And at that point, you're right, it's not legal. So we basically agree that this is a bunch of crap, I was just pointing out that most of what you said was illegal isn't.

Before you go making forcefully declarative statements about Copyright Law, maybe you should actually read it.

While I agree with your assessment that 24 hour trial periods are not legal, the other activities you decree against the law are under no such prohibition. For instance, the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 specifically allows consumers to make backup copies of any digital media they purchase for the purposes of archival and protection against media damage.

I also don't see what possible legal arguments can be constructed against "Borrowing". U.S. Courts have consistently held up the "First Sale" doctrine for copyrighted works. When you purchase copyrighted work on any media, you are legally free to dispose of that particular copy of the media in any way you choose, save distributing multiple copies. You can give it away, loan it out, rent it, lease it, or sell it to a third party. Studios, and later game companies tried to sue video rental chains for renting movies and games when that practice first started, and the rental outlets won. This is really not much different, although a savvy IP lawyer might argue that the vaguaries of "ephemeral copies" made in internet transmissions make this a totally different ball-game. It is uncertain, sure, but hardly the cut-and-dry sort of case you're claiming.

Another question I have is how is emulation on shaky ground due to reverse engineering? Reverse-engineering has been held to be perfectly legal in hundreds of court-cases, at nearly all levels of the judiciary. Even video-game emulators have been held to be a legally permissible product of reverse-engineering technology for compatibility purposes, in the case Sony vs. Connectix Software. Case law is firmly on the side of reverse-engineers in this regard (unless of course patents are infringed upon, in which case there is no need for reverse-engineering anyway, since the patent definition is a publicly available spec of the technology in question).

You seem to have a strong emotional feeling on this issue. I don't care to argue the philosophical or moral issues involved in freedom of information, or the balance of the right to share knowledge against the benefit of providing knowledge generators with a socially useful reward for their activities, because your tone indicates you are not capable of conducting such an argument in a rational and civil manner.

I will, however, happily correct your glaringly false statements about the law regarding these issues, as it has nothing of the black-and-white clarity you seem to think it has.

the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 specifically allows consumers to make backup copies of any digital media

Really? Would you be so kind as to point out to me exactly where the AHRA [virtualrecordings.com] states that, please? I searched for the word "copy", and couldn't find any pertinant information. I also searched for "backup", "archive", "damage", and about every other synonym that I could think of, to no avail. IANAL either, but you would think that sort of thing ("You can copy this piece of copyrighted information!") would be pretty explicitly spelled out.

But you see, the problem comes in making the leap from meatspace to cyberspace. It's one thing to give a single, static, unchanging copy of a book to a friend to read. It's another thing to give him a copy of a book that he can easily reproduce and save for himself. The problem is that it's so damn easy to make copies of digital works that the same laws cannot apply.

Re: reverse engineering, I was assuming that all code within the ROMs was copyrighted and protected by patents. Otherwise, you're right, it's legal.

Finally, as for it being "black and white", I refer you to this comment [slashdot.org] that I made detailing the US Code laws in respect to fair use. In that case, I do believe that it is "black and white." If you make a copy of a copyrighted work and make it publically available, you are infringing copyright, and therefore engaging in an illegal act.

Read their page - it doesn't work that way. You have to download a specially modified version of Nester (which fortunately happens to be a very good NES emulator) that connects to their site and downloads a ROM into the program's memory. No files touch your hard disk.

Someone would have to waste a lot of time writing a crack, but I guess someone probably will do just that, if only for the challenge.